Turkey to run Benghazi airport: PM
Ottoman Tripolitania
Under the Ottomans, the Maghreb was divided into three provinces, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. After 1565, administrative authority in Tripoli was vested in a pasha appointed by the sultan in Constantinople. Tripolitania was a separate Italian colony from 1927 to 1934. From 1934 to 1963, Tripolitania was one of three administrative divisions within Italian Libya and the Kingdom of Libya, alongside Cyrenaica to the east and Fezzan to the south.
The war in Libya: Nato decides how far it wants to go
Nato faces a dilemma. If France thinks the alliance is not being aggressive enough, it could carry on flying its own missions.
Nato’s governing body, the North Atlantic Council (NAC), is meeting today in Brussels to decide how deeply it is willing to be drawn into the Libyan conflict. Washington is very keen to hand over this chalice in time for Hillary Clinton and Bob Gates to go on the Sunday morning talk shows and tell the nation that Libya is not longer America’s problem. US officials here in Brussels have therefore been briefing that the result of today’s NAC is entirely cut and dried: Nato will take over the whole campaign, including the arms embargo, no-fly zone and air strikes.
Whose model is it anyway?
Diplomacy was never Muammar Gaddafi?s strong suit. Even as he was trying to sweet-talk Ankara the other day out of joining an allied military alliance, the Great Leader could not refrain from trying to slip in the knife.
Does Europe understand the new Middle East
Over the past centuries, Europe has been living with a notion of the Arab and of the Muslim as a backward people following an even backward culture. An existential threat to the enlightened, civilized and secular world; the archaic image of an angry, monstrous Arab has been seared into our minds for some time. Much like a wild animal, this Arab would need taming and domestication so that it may too one day drink from the secret source of Western civilisation. This Arab would be comfortable with the status quo, indifferent about who ruled him and lack the capacity or aspiration for change. Unlike non-Arab people, we were led to believe that the Arabs never had a tradition of civilisation and of representation; indeed considered a barren land for freedom and enlightenment.
Libya: the top ten consequences (so far)
By James Rogers
1. Thousands ? even tens of thousands ? of civilians in the city of Benghazi have been saved from the wrath of Colonel Gaddafi?s mercenaries and fighters. French airpower stopped his offensive ?in its tracks?, after the Tripoli regime promised to show ?no mercy? to Benghazi?s inhabitants.
Turkey offers to broker Libya ceasefire as rebels advance on Sirte
Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan challenges western direct action and says prolonged conflict could lead to a ‘second Iraq’
The Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signalled that Turkey is ready to act as a mediator to broker an early ceasefire in Libya, as he warned that a drawn-out conflict risked turning the country into a “second Iraq” or “another Afghanistan” with devastating repercussions both for Libya and the Nato states leading the intervention.
Supporters of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr chant pro-Turkey slogans as a car carrying Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan passes in Baghdad,? Read more » (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Future predictions based on past data
I concluded one of my previous articles with the following paragraph: ?The prospects of inevitable change will compel illiberal regimes to recast their political systems if they do not want to be swept into the trash can of history. Gradual or even sudden transformation (read this as disposal) of theocracies and dictatorships will reshape the Middle East and North Africa. This is a more comprehensive and sweeping change than the scrapped American Greater Middle East Project. It is genuine, voluntary and local rather than foreign inspired and driven. That is the gist of the ongoing transformation: change within and through local actors.?
Turkey, its neighbors and Europe
The Humanitarian-Militarist Project and the Production of Empire in Libya
From Hero to Zero, is Gaddafi the new Whacko Jacko?
Though I hate to say I told you so, this Thus post from August 2009 ?Where?s Gordon Brown in the Libyan Desert Storm?? deals at length in customary erudite fashion with the extraordinary rehabilitation of Whacko Jacko Gadaffi, his socialite son Saif, erstwhile cocktail guest of both Mandelson and Osborne and the strange silence surrounding the release of Al Megrahi, the world?s longest surviving terminal cancer patient. I?m particularly proud of the gratuitous and childish captions, by the way.
Libya and the Passive Repeaters: Deploying Depleted Information Warheads
A video that in many ways corresponds with what I argued in ?America?s Iranian Twitter Revolution,? the video below in part shows how the use of social media to make falsified versions of Libyan reality can go viral?radioactive?producing an intellectually toxic swarm of passive repeaters. Critical questions are like static, they interrupt the clarity of the message: dictator vs. revolutionaries, support the people, implement a no-fly zone right now.
Syria: Protesters Demolish Symbols of Regime
by Jillian C. York
Libya: Where is Eman Al Obeidy?
Written by Amira Al Hussaini
This post is part of our special coverage Libya Uprising 2011.
?Where is Eman Al Obeidy?? has become a pressing question, after a distraught Libyan woman burst into a Tripoli hotel full of foreign journalists, telling then that scars and bruises on her face and body has been inflicted by 15 Muammar Gaddafi’s militia, who arrested her at a checkpoint for two days, where they gang raped her.
Iran: Syrians Protest ?Neither Iran Nor Hezbollah!?
by Hamid Tehrani
Syria: Egyptian-American Tweep Accused of Spying
by Amira Al Hussaini
Jordan: One Death and Some Loss of Hope
by Nadine Toukan
Arguing the Case Against the Libya Attack, Xtranormal Style [VIDEO]
by Todd Wasserman
Libya: Citizen Reporting from the Battlefield
Written by Hisham
This post is part of our special coverage Libya Uprising 2011.
Videos continue to seep out from war-torn Libya as protesters battle Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in a bid to overthrow his 42-year-old regime. Here is a selection of the latest videos taken by netizens on the frontlines of major cities where the battle for Libya is still fought.
Revolutions: What went wrong in the west?
Egypt: Football Before and After the Revolution
Written by Tarek Amr
In the past years, football (soccer) used to be the main source for joy for the Egyptian people. The Egyptian football team won the past three African Cups of Nations that were held in Egypt, Ghana and Angola successively. During the championships it was normal to see the people here mesmerized in front of television sets, and ready with their flags and car honks to go down and celebrate in the streets after every victory.
Is it ‘game over’ in Yemen?
2011-03-27 Anti Gaddafi forces claim Sirte, advance on Tripoli #Libya
2011-03-27 Secret police, special forces and now the army defend Assad’s rule in #Syria
Syrian troops fire teargas at protesters in Deraa
by James Meikle
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